So... This is Christmas?

Christmas Eve we packed up our kids, our pies, our fondue, and our jello salad and went to our first event, early christmas dinner with the Derington's at my brother Jake's house. My brother Jake hosts this event every year and we were extra lucky to have it there this year since Jake was out of town up until the even this year.

It is always a fun time that includes food, gifts, and just spending time together. I was really proud of Nicole this year. Nicole has a lot of social anxiety, especially in a crowd, but this year she actually played with the other kids and had a fun time. She really likes her cousin Keira who is close to her age. I saw them walking around holding hands and it was just so stinking cute!

I tried to get a picture of the girls together, but they were so busy looking at each other that they wouldn't look at me.

Little did we know that this party would get us all sick. Not just my family, but also my parents and my sister Marie's family. I don't know where it all orginated, but 9 of the 16 guests got the stomach flu within 48 hours of this party. Oh yeah, it was definitely a Becky holiday (I notoriously get sick on holidays and during travel).

After my family party, we headed to Momma Kimball's house. We did a white elephant gift exchange with Matt's family and we all stayed the night at Momma Kimball's house.

Nicole actually did really well with this too. On the fourth of July, we tried staying over night at Momma Kimball's and it was awful because Nicole just wouldn't sleep, but she did really well and slept in until 7am. Dan on the other hand, woke up many times in the night. We all survived though.

My little family was of course the first ones awake and we woke everyone in the house up because we were staying downstairs and had to walk all the way upstairs and past everyone to use the bathroom in the morning. And Nicole likes to ask a lot of questions and doesn't know how to do it quietly.
"Are we going to the bathroom?"
"Is it dark?"
"Is there a bear in there?" (Uncle Carlos is a loud snorer)

So, since everyone was awake, we started with stockings. Momma Kimball made a stocking for all the grandkids and put a bunch of toys inside, so Dan and Nicole got a lot of stuff between their grandma stocking and their "Santa" stocking. And, they got so wrapped up in stocking stuff that they got all side tracked from the real presents.

Nicole is wearing her Christmas pajamas in these pics, but Dan is not because he peed on them before I was able to get a picture of them. I had all these plans to have the kids in cute pajamas on Christmas, oh well.

After stockings, we ate a yummy breakfast of sticky rolls and quiche. Then, we opened presents. The kids got a LOT of toys. Like more toys than I would have liked, but I packed up a BUNCH of their old toys when we got home so there would be room for their new toys.

Nicole's big toy of the year was a treehouse for her Little Petshop animals.

Dan's big toy was a spinning car track... thing.

I only got a pic of Nicole's toy.

Nicole loved her gifts and it was a fun Christmas morning... until church. We went to church with Momma Kimball and Nicole was a terror! I guess the excitement of Christmas was a little too much because she could not sit still or be quiet and we ended up leaving early.

We spent the rest of the day at Momma Kimball's because the Kimball's had a big Christmas dinner. The dinner was great (until I was throwing it up later). Nicole had a hard time though because we had opened some of her new toys for her to play with and her cousins also wanted to play with her new toys. Nicole is not very good at sharing new toys (but what child is really?). Her cousins had gotten new toys too, but their parents had taken them away right after they got them, so the only new toys out were Nicole's and it was a fight to play with them. Now we know, if other parents take away the new toys, we must too.

We headed home in the evening and it was a relief to finally be home in our own house. I put away the toys, unpacked our stuff and we went to bed. And then woke up a couple hours later to my sweet baby boy throwing up. And an hour after that, Matt was throwing up, and an hour after that, I was throwing up. We spent the next 12 hours trading turns in the bathroom and holding Daniel over the sink to throw up. There is nothing worse than watching your baby dry heave.

Nicole, luckily, did not wake up throwing up. She woke up with a fever and didn't throw up until later in the day on Monday. It was a horrible, violent, awful stomach flu that took about 30 hours to pass. On Tuesday morning, we were all done throwing up, but still retained our fevers. I spent most of Tuesday washing vomit laundry and trying to recover and clean up from the stomach flu.

So, two days of my holiday were spent sick and it was awful, but I am glad that I was with my family and that I was able to be there to take care of my kids while they were sick since I rarely get to do that. I like to be the mommy and take care of my kids. Matt, of course, deals with sickness a lot better than I do and was a lot better at taking care of everyone than I was. Matt's a super daddy/husband.

So, the holiday was good... and bad, and over. I'm excited to be well and finally get to play with my kids and their new toys... and my new toys (Just Dance 3 and Metroid oh yeah!)